Search Engine Optimization

Whenever I think about life before Google, I pity those poor college students.  Can you even imagine having a question and not being able to find the answer with the push of a button?  I mean, how would you ever know how to make muddy buddies, or what year the Lion King was released?  And homework assignments, don’t even get me started.  But not everything that comes up in search engines is exactly what you were looking for.  Shocker, right?  It’s up to us to the user to sift through the information and find what they really need.

From a business standpoint, you want your website to be exactly what the user is looking for.  And the goal is to be at the top of every search result.  Bumping your website up the search scale is called “search engine optimization.”  Or in other words, become the number one result on Google.  This article gives some more tips on SEO’s and how to utilize the engines:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

One thing that internet surfers will be looking for is whether or not your website looks credible.  This article (conveniently found on the web) gives some tips on how to determine if a website is credible or not:  http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm  Look for credible names or organizations backing the website.  Looking for spelling and grammar mistakes is also helpful.  Check for bias that is swaying to one end of the spectrum.  The more reliable you make yourself, the more hits you will get on your page.

Keep in mind that there are different kinds of searches.  There are local searches, image searches , scholarly searches, and each have their own unique set of results.  Determine who your target audience is and tailor your searches to meet their needs.  If you show up in Google, they might just click your site.  And if they click your site, they might just buy your product.